What Making Money Makes of You
There are two camps. One says, make money—it is life’s ultimate truth. The other says money makes you evil and corrupt. One says money makes people respect you. The other says relationships cannot be bought with money. One says people who claim money can’t buy happiness simply don’t know where to shop. The other says, try buying someone’s love with money.
Both camps are right in a way. But my point isn’t whether you should dedicate your life to making more money. You don’t really have a choice unless you come from generational wealth. Everybody has to work for money. Whether they like it or not is irrelevant.
The process of making money is where most of our life happens. How you choose to make money shapes your entire life. Some people do wage labour their entire lives because that is the only way they know how to make money. In the process, they build a life in which they know more about their workplace than their home. They know more about the problems at work than the problems within their family. They make money but end up becoming people without roots.
Some people choose to build businesses and make money from them. Some make money through creative pursuits. Some make money by cheating people. There are no absolute right or wrong ways to make money. Who are we to judge? But notice how the process of making money changes you. Whichever path you choose to walk demands something from you before it provides anything in return. That demand eventually transforms your outlook on life.
Someone who has spent two decades making money by writing and selling novels will have a very different lifestyle from someone who has spent those same decades working as a management consultant. Their outlooks will differ too. Their respective journeys eventually change them, moulding each into a person more conducive to the work they do.
Money transforms your life completely. This is perhaps the most important reason to be mindful when choosing how you make it. In the beginning, you think making money is what matters, regardless of where it comes from. But keep walking down a particular path and eventually that path transforms you. And once it transforms you, the transformation affects everything you touch.
Money is amoral. It has no bias towards good or bad. But the pursuit of it has a trajectory. The things you repeatedly do to acquire money change you from within. If that transformation is for the better, more money may only increase your happiness. But if that transformation isolates you from the world, more money will only deepen the isolation.
So the next time you ask how you can make more money, also ask yourself: What is the price of making more money this way? And are you willing to pay that price?
If not, find another way to make money.